a hail of gunshots and wall of flames, what appears 20 be the chaotic end to a manhunt for an accused cop killer. they deserve a vote. >> president obama getting emotional talking about americans touched by gun violence in his state of the union address. >> and we're counting down to a live event at vatican city, pope benedict set to speak at this hour for the first time since the bombshell announcement that he's retiring. welcome back to a special edition of "early start". zoraida will be joining us from new york. >> and we're live in washington, d.c., 30 past the hour. lots to talk about. let's start with the state of the union address when the president laid out his vision for his second term. the president challenging republicans to work with him to raise the middle class.

again a vote on gun control, we'll have more on some of those specific details in just a moment. first, though, we want to talk about a story that's been unfolding all through yesterday afternoon and straight through the night. >> after a massive ten day man opportunity oi hunt, the searches has come to a violent end in the mountains of big bear, california. new this morning, authorities now say they have found the charred remains in a burned out cabin. while we still don't have a positive i.d., law enforcement officials seem confident that chris to have dorn chr chris dorner was killed. casey, what is the latest on this investigation? >> reporter: well, it certainly was a wild day yesterday and throughout the night. this all started with the report of a stolen vehicle in the big

bear area of southern california, 12:22 p.m. yesterday afternoon local time. down the mountain 27 miles from the ski resort a white pickup truck was encountered by fish and wildlife officials. they say they recognized the driver to be christopher dorner. there was a brief exchange of gunfire. they turned around and exchanged govern figunfire with him again. >> he shot at our wardens, they stopped the vehicle as he continued around the curve, the warden had his patrol rifle. went up to a location where he could engage the suspect and he fired multiple rounds at the suspect as he was driving away. it's a unknown whether or not he was hit or how many times the truck was hit. that's all up in the air at this point. >> reporter: dorner apparently the suspect law enforcement

believes to be dorner apparently fled into a local cabin. it appears he was trying to escape down that mountain. there's only three roads off of that mountain. he was stopped apparently. fire ensued after law enforcement began approaching that cabin and it was burnt to the ground. as you mentioned, they have found the charred human remains inside that burnt cabin, but they have not identified whether those human remains belong to christopher dorner. one other thing i want to clear up, those viewers who are watching cnn's coverage yesterday evening throughout the night may have noticed there was some apparent discrepancy between the los angeles police department and san bernardino county as to the potential identification and reports that a body was pulled out of that cabin. lcht lapd source tells me the wroen

they came out forcefully saying last night there was no body, no identification, is because there was a local media report here in los angeles that was attributing that information to the lapd. the lapd says it did not come from them and they say this is the san bernardino county sheriff's department investigation and that there is no disagreement between the two between law enforcement agencies at this point. >> so before yesterday, the police had been tracking this by for about seven days, leads had run hot and cold. did they fina with him? >> reporter: as you mention, it was a long investigative process. this began on february 3, a week ago sunday, with the killings of the daughter of a former lapd official and her fiance in irvine, california. on thursday, a riverside, california police officer was shot and killed. several other officers were shot at and survived.

in the meantime, there were pieces of evidence from the u.s./mexico border to nevada that investigators were tracking down. dorner's wallet and identification were found near the border. a burning truck was found in the big bear area and that's what led them to concentrate that search into the big bear area. >> all right. thank, casey wian at lapd headquarters. economic growth and job creation are two points of emphasis during the president's state of union address last night, but his most dramatic point to congress was about gun violence.president taking notes of the victims present last night including the family of thahadiya pendleton. >> her parents are here along with more than two dozen americans whose lives have been torn apart by gun violence. they deserve a vote. they deserve a vote.

they deserve a vote. gabby giffords deserves a vote. the families of newtown key serve a vote. the families of aurora deserve a vote. the families of oak on creek and tucson and blacksburg and the countless other communities ripped open by gun violence, they deserve a simple vote. >> it was easily the most emotional moment of the speech last night. republican senator marco rubio gave the republican response to the state of the union. he criticized big government saying the president's deficit reduction plan will not help the middle class. >> the tax increases and the can

deficit spending you propose will hurt middle class families. it will cost them their raises. it will cost them their benefits. it may even cost some of them their jobs. and it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save medicare and social security. so mr. president, i don't oppose your plan because i want to protect the rich. i oppose your plans because i want to protect my neighbors, hard working middle class americans who don't need to us come up with a plan to grow the government. they need a plan to grow the middle class. >> now, this was not the only response. republican senator rand paul gave the tea party response. he criticized government spending, he called for a balanced budget amendment, and he challenged his fellow republicans to shift their views on illegal immigration. >> the party that embraces hard work and in-begin ngenuitingenue must be the party who embraces the immigrant who wants to come to america for a better future,

who sees immigrants as asset, not liabilities. we must be the party who says if you want to work, if you want to be an american, we welcome you. >> we'll talk more about the the state of the union address and also the rebuttals you could call them continuing through the morning. other story, though, happening, as well. zoraida will take it from here. >> pope benedict xvi is celebrating what will likely be his last public mass this ash wednesday. so before that happens, he's appearing right now before the thousands of faithful who have gathered at st. peters square. it is a first time that we are hearing from the pope since he announced that he was stepping down. our senior european correspondent jim bittermann is on the phone in vatican city this morning. i don't know if the pope has actually come out yet, jim, but this will be the first time that he actually addresses what was the most shocking announcement that we heard come out from vatican city. do you think that he will address that announcement right

off the bat? >> i think so. i don't know if he'll do it right off the bat, but i have a feeling he'll at least have mention of it during his audience this morning. we're expecting a lot larger crowd this morning since this will be one of his last pay pal audiences. there's still basically two weeks between now and the day he resigns. and there will be another two wednesdays at which he will do pay ppal audiences. the significance of today, however, will be a little later on today when he celebrates what will be his last large mass at st. peter's for ash wednesday for the start of the lenten season in the church calendar. >> so we were learning more about the pope's health, that he actually recently underwent surgery. and they're just releasing that information now. is that a surprise? >> well, it wasn't really a surprise to a lot of the long

time vatican watchers because in fact this was surgery to replace a battery in a pacemaker which the pope had put in when he was a cardinal about ten years or so ago. and it's the kind of thing that's fairly routine. but some of the newspapers here in rome had picked it up and decided that perhaps that had contributed to his frail health. but the vatican spokesman said yesterday that in fact there was no connection between the two, it was just a routine operation to replace the battery in the pacemaker. >> so i know in a thna that thi meeting that the pope has there and as we're looking at the live pictures, how does that compare to the number of people who typically show up? >> well, i think there's a lot more this morning because people realize they may get the last glimpse of this pope in the next two weeks, the various public events that are coming up.

and the audiences -- there are two more audiences after this one. the last is 27th of february, he retires on the 28th. so i think this is a must do this morning if you're around rome and have the time to do it. i think that would be something that you'd want to do so you could say you were there for one of the very last public paeshsa public appearances of the pope. >> hijim, thank you very much. back to john and soledad in d.c.. the manhunt may be over in the west, but not before a shoot-out and raging fire. and now late word of charred remains. this story still developing this morning. more coming up. and president targeting gun violence in last night's state of the union address. cnn fact check and the nra's swift response is ahead, as well. but when you wake up in the middle of the night it can be frustrating.

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welcome back to a very special early "early start". we're live in washington, d.c. for the state of the union. but there has been another big story developing all night long. the manhunt may be over for an accused killer ex-cop but not before a shoot-out, a fire, and before he apparently killed again. >> police say charred remains have been found inside the cabin where the shoot-out happened. for more on the manhunt, want to bring in a former nassau county police officer, he now heads up his own security officer. nice to have you with us. it's interesting, maybe we can throw the map up on the screen for everybody, when you look at where this seems to have all ended, the cabin where the fire took place, it's actually not so far away from where the burning truck was found a week ago, giving us the sense that actually the degraphic area where he's been over the last week is relatively small. even though they kind of down scaled the number of officers in

the area and there are many rumors that in fact he had many gone on to mexico. >> yeah, i think what law enforcement was thinking was that he would logically attempt to flee big bear, which would make sense. but the thinking from his perspective, dorner's perspective, he's going there's cops everywhere, only three arteries that lead us in and out and the likelihood of me being able to safely pass through without encountering law enforcement, not very great. so he kind of hunkered down, tried to reinvent his whole plan because his plan was derailed the moment he broke the axle on that vehicle. he hadn't anticipate the that. what i believe he did was he left the radar screen. the area of concentration where all of lapd was was primarily the immediate los angeles area. so he goes back up, leaves the radar screen, regroups, reintroduces himself into the area that's targeted.

the axle breaking changed and altered the course of his life so to speak. so he was probably moving on foot a considerable amount of time and there are a lot of empty cabins there that lends itself to the fact that there may not be as many vehicles there as he would have liked. he could have car jacked somebody, gone right back to l.a., dumped the vehicle and assimilated into a bigger backyard. >> they did seem to back off the search for a day or two, but there seemed to be a very high level of coordination between law enforcement agencies here and ultimately it may have been a fish and wild life warden who essentially matt key discovery, got that first chase with him. >> every time the individual had a random encounter with law enforcement, he came out on top. >> what does that tell you? >> one of the things i was trying to figure out was why was he so successful, one individual, every time he encountered two law enforcement

agency, seriously wounding one and i will can go the other. perhaps the weapons that he chose to use like an assault rifle defeat our bulletproof vests. that's one thing. our bulletproof vests are designed or rated to stop up to like .9 millimeter ammunition and all handgun calibers as a rule. but rifle fire even from like and this gun we referred to as an ar-15 will penetrate our vests. >> so that's an indication what kind of equipment he might have had. >> and all of this will come out through the investigation. they already know what the officers were shot with. but they have to pull the whole thing together, they have to conduct the forensics, they have to match his dna, they have to -- >> how long will that take? we now are getting word from about 3:00 this morning that there are charred remains inside the house, but how long before they process the cabin which was apparently empty, how long before they're able to make an actual positive identification of the body? >> i'm hearing they're reporting

weeks. >> that seems long. >> it does seem a bit protracted considering science as we know today, but that's something that was volunteered. maybe it won't be as long. but the one thing they have to have is closure to the incident and the one way to ob on taken closure is through positive identification. >> luck, thathanks for joining . a lot of information you're helping us digest. let's get back to sozoraidan new york. >> we'll head to the nightmare cruise. passengers on board the triumph are at the mercy of the sea and the wind conditions. two tugboats are moving the ship crippled by an engine fire. it's headed to a port in alabama. if sea winds do not cooperate, it could be another day stuck with deployable conditions including a sloshing sewage and dwindling food supplies now. but if all goes well, the ship

should arrive in mobile by thursday. and celebrations turned deadly during carnival. state tv there say four are dead after being eelectric friday cuted when a carnival float struck some power lines in the the brazilian port city tuesday. the three men pushing the float were killed instantly. and 19-year-old woman stepped into help, she was also shocked. she died later in a local hospital. and a new study says taking folic acid during pregnancy may help lower the risk of giving birth to an autistic child. researchers in norway looked at 85,000 pregnancies and found women who took the supplement were 39% less likely to have a child with autism. the study is in the journal of the american medical association. and video inside this tennessee school bus shows 18-year-old jonathan cull collins on a bit of a joy ride. where was he going? he was headed to his grandmother's house. police say collins was walking

there when he noticed a school bus parked on the road with the keys inside. that's when i decided to go for that joy ride. the bus was not damaged, but that 1-year-old faces a felony theft charge now. not a good idea. and lady gaga is forced to postpone several shows of her born this way tour due to a painful injury. in a series of tweets, she explains she suffers from a severe inflammation of the joints, it has gotten much worse, especially after the show in montreal monday night left her unable to walk. concerts have thousand been postponed in chicago, detroit, and hamilton, ontario. we wish her well. and some places are still digging out from the history making blizzard. thousand we understand there is more snow on the way. so let's check in with andrea pe indra peterson. >> exactly what we don't want to see. bringing all the cold air with it, straight to the south.

we'll be watching a low producing the heavy showers in texas yesterday as it makes a bee line for the east coast. you can see where that low is. there is the cold front. keep in mind the southeast has seen so much rain. some places even southwest georgia 5 to 7 inches of rain over the last several days. today more rain on the way. and the flood threat will be the concern. there are the flood watches today. but, yes, you mentioned out towards the mid-atlantic, what's going to happen? this low will eventually make its way up to the mid-atlantic, it will combine with the cold air and overnight tonight we'll see rain switch to snow. here's the good news, it won't be a wallop by any means. a couple inches expected. you can seat advisories. 1 to 3 inches. we're talking about jersey, philly and portions of west virginia. overall not the big storm that potentially did see just a few days ago. otherwise the bigger story we're watchinging a as we go through the weekend will be more of that

cold air pushing all the way to the east. a couple more clippers continue to bring snow showers from the great lakes to the northeast, but overall, nothing major and that is good news. >> i think people are kind of tired of the cold, the rain. bring the warm temperatures. >> why i'm wearing a sweater. >> true. let's send it back to john and soledad. it's warm there, right? >> it was pitch black, so -- >> lights are kind of bright. >> it was cold. >> what's weather? president obama here in d.c. getting pretty high markses for last night's state of the union address. first of his second term, he pressed congress to enact tougher gun laws, a critical element to reducing gun violence. tom foreman has a fact check on the gun debate. >> here is a big number at the middle of the gun debate that a lot of people this washington know. just short of 32,000. that's how many gun deaths there were in 2011.

if you take out two thirds of them which were suicides, you get down to about 11,000. but as you dissect this number in terms of gun policy, the picture gets murkier, not clearer, in part because the targets of the president and the democratics narrowed in on this. for example, if you look at the question of banning assault weapons as they're called by many people, many voters would say this is a no-brainer. we've heard about colorado, connecticut, seen a lot of bad headlines associated with guns like this, let's get rid of them. here's the problem. even if you brought in all types of rifles and you combine them together with the so-called as suggest weapons and put them in a big pile, they would account for only 4% of all of these homicides back here. what about shotguns? only another 4%. so you can see long guns collectively less than 10%s of all these homicides. if you want to get at people killing other people in this country with guns, you almost certainly have to talk about this, handguns. because handguns account for 72%

of the cases in which one american shoots and kills another american. so now you see the difficulty the president faces. yes, there is public support for the idea of some sort of new gun legislation right now. people are leaning that way because of recent events. but it's not clear if the policies that people most want to support would produce the results people are after. >> our thanks to tom information many for that. meanwhile the national rifle association delivering his counter point.for that. meanwhile the national rifle association delivering his counter point.that. meanwhile the national rifle association delivering his counter point.meanwhile the nat association delivering his counter point. it says his attempt to reduce gun violence is a threat to law abiding gun owners. >> the obama administration believes that gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation. and universal background checks will not work without requiring national gun registration. still think president obama's proposals sound reasonable? >> the nra posted the video of

course to coincide with the president's speech. taking a look now at the top trends on the web this morning, it's #water gate florida. the speech was good, but he awkwardly reached for that little bottle of water during the gop response to the president's state of the union address and then of course almost instantly and with no surprise became a trending topic. some giving props for very, very good prop placement. >> i've seen the hash tag aqua line. so banana joe wins best in show at the westminster kennel club dog show. he's the first alfenpinscher to win. he beat out all the other competition. he's the top dog. another year, yet another year where a lab or golden retriever

doesn't win. where is the outrage? here is the outrage. check out the other top cnn trends, head to cnn.com/trends. ahead this morning at the top of the hour, late breaking developments in the manhunt for apaccused cop killer. human remains pulled out of a cabin where the last stand was made. a live report straight ahead. plus more on the state of the union, guns, economy, afghanistan all part of the address. more fact checks just ahead. [ anouncer ] ihop is in time square to compare new griddle-melts to your usual breakfast sandwich. a lot more flavor. [ anouncer ] ihop's new griddle melts... made fresh and hot! hand crafted just for you. it's like a sexy sandwich. [ anouncer ] compare new griddle melts yourself. just $4.99. it's an epic breakfast sandwich.